on Leadership & Career

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:

Katie Switzer — Advanced Engineering Culture series
Ash Norton — Engineering Leadership series
Tim Rodgers — Managing in the 2000s series
Rob Allen — Product Development and Process Improvement series

by Ash Norton 1 Comment

Engineering Manager – The Sasquatch of Leadership?

“[They] aren’t just hard to find — they don’t exist”

Think this was written about the elusive Sasquatch? Loch Ness monster, maybe? What about the abominable snowman?

Nope, nope, and nope. This was referring to good engineering managers.

In his opinion piece, Juan Pablo Dellarroquelle argues that engineers that are good at their jobs have little incentive to move into a managerial role because they are already influential leaders in an individual contributor role.

Alternatively, he argues, engineers who are weak technically are promoted to managers because of their organizational skills.

While this may be the case in some circumstances, in general – I disagree. [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

A Scalable Model for Lean Product Development

In my previous article we established the lean product development goal statement as:

Develop products that maximize customer value and minimize product cost, in the least amount of time, and at the least amount of product development cost.

We then derived high-level objectives as follows:

Better understand the customer (maximize customer value)
Do the right projects (product, project and portfolio value analysis)
Do projects right (minimize redesigns, waste and rework)
Level load the organization (minimize bottlenecks and resource constraints)
Create and re-use artifacts (standardize and sustain best practices)

These might be considered “enterprise” level objectives…some or all of the objectives might be part of a product development organizational strategy depending on type and/or quantity of development projects.

Let us start by listing lean objectives based the quantity of product development projects:

More projects generally require more governance and management, including managing resources across projects.

Several elements of lean are apparent:

reduce work-effort on the wrong projects
eliminate rogue projects
cancel projects that no longer make business sense
reduce bottlenecks by effectively managing resources
enforce or encourage process discipline

Note an element of ‘slowing-down-to-go-faster’ here….investing work-effort into project governance to achieve significant savings, and enable more valuable projects to be completed faster.

A tailored approach would also consider the type of product development project. A project goal might be to demonstrate a minimum viable product (perhaps a start-up company) or pursue complete product commercialization (manufacturing company).

The graphic below provides some suggested lean product development objectives and initiatives accordingly.

A development process, with the ultimate goal of product commercialization, might place more emphasis on reducing design risk, design optimization & manufacturability. Elements of lean enable the technical process by which customer value is maximized and product cost is minimized.

This brings us to our final category of enabling lean: making good business decisions. Investing in a product or project is ultimately a business decision that can be improved with financial estimating and analysis. Here again we consider the type of product development project, and emphasize customer value, product cost and project cost.

A business decision priority for demonstrating a minimum viable product might include (as a minimum) ensuring corresponding value to the customer. Meanwhile, a more comprehensive financial analysis is more appropriate for many (or larger) projects going through complete commercialization.

Lean product development approaches are scalable based on several factors; a company may perform some project retrospectives, perform an internal survey or assessment, or begin with some awareness of tools and methodologies. ….do you have too many projects? projects that weren’t ultimately successful? resource constraints? high risk of design rework? sub-optimized designs? inadequate product margins? difficult-to-manufacture products?

The most effective and beneficial elements of lean enterprise product development could be down-selected. Even without much project history, risk can be significantly reduced by starting with the basic elements of lean product development. There are likely many opportunities to streamline your product development process. Contact Rob Allen in the form below for additional information or an initial consultation.

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is Lean Product Development (Part III)

In my previous article, we established some high-level objectives for lean product development as follows:

Better understand the customer (maximize customer value)
Do the right projects (product, project and portfolio value analysis)
Do projects right (minimize waste and rework)
Level load the organization (minimize bottlenecks and resource constraints)
Create and re-use artifacts (standardize and sustain best practices)

[Read more…]

by Ash Norton Leave a Comment

Should I get my Professional Engineer License?

#AskAsh-002 – Should I get my Professional Engineer License?

Question:

Hi Ash,

Several managers at my company have told me they think I should pursue getting my Professional Engineer license. While I am not opposed to getting it, I am just not sure it will be worth it.

What do you think?

Thanks,

-Anonymous, Cincinnati, OH

[Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is Lean Product Development? (Part II)

In my last article the high level goal of lean product development was established as follows:

Develop products that maximize customer value and minimize product cost, in the least amount of time, and at the least amount of product development cost.

Let’s analyze this goal statement and establish some high-level objectives. [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

What is Lean Product Development (Part I)?

Lean product development might mean different things to different organizations, but let’s start with the 5 principles of lean manufacturing and see how it can be applied to the product development process. [Read more…]

by Ash Norton 1 Comment

Should I Stay or Should I go?

#AskAsh – 001 – Should I stay in my engineering job or search for another?

Question:

Hey Ash,
I have a question about whether I should stay in my current engineering job or pursue other options.

I work for an engineering firm that does contract work for other companies. We have recently lost a big contract. With this lull, I have been told that much of my work over the next several months will basically be document control.

As a new engineer, I am concerned that I will be missing out on valuable experience if I am not working on strong engineering projects.

So my question is, should I stick it out or look for another job?

Thanks,
-Anonymous

[Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Ensuring Linkage Between Requirements and Verification

One of several reasons for emphasizing product requirements includes enabling modeling and simulations of designs, as well as ensuring adequate verification and validation testing.

Recall the fundamental framing of a requirement as:

“What shall the design provide (output) @ input conditions?”
“What does design need (inputs) from the customer in order for the design to perform as expected?”

Note the framing (within the requirement) of a mathematical and/or experimental relationship where “Y” is the output as a function of “(x)” as the input….Y = f(x) or as a function of multiple inputs Y = f (x1, x2, x3…xn). Let’s expand on this for a moment:

[Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Understanding Design Constraints

While previous articles focused on requirements writing, another element of products requirements is design constraints.

A design constraint might not be a requirement in the purest sense, but must be accommodated in product requirements (and, ideally, identified as such). Design constraints almost always make their way into product requirements.

Let’s use a simple example whereby a specific housing material is specified (a polyester thermoplastic elastomer).

The requirement might simply be: “The housing material shall be made of a polyester thermoplastic elastomer”. The PRD is then provided to the designer, essentially telling him he must use this material.

[Read more…]

by Ash Norton Leave a Comment

Technical Writing tips for Engineers

Back to the Basics: Technical Writing Tips for Engineers

I’ve teamed up with Skylar Wooden, a Technical Writer, and Katie Butler, a CPA, the ladies behind Pare and Flourish to bring you some technical writing tips for engineers.

Engineers are incredibly knowledgeable people. You understand how to design and build the most complex of structures. You analyze and evaluate intricate data. But, many engineers miss one of the most important aspects of any profession—explaining your work to others. Whether it’s to tell someone how to perform a task, or report on a project to a superior, relaying information is just as critical as knowing the information.

As an engineer, you can offer your expertise in two ways: verbal or written communication. You likely deal with the verbal aspect of this on a daily basis when you answer questions, explain a process, or even talk about your job with your friends. So, how often are you writing? [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Using Hierarchy In Complex System Requirements and Design

Managing requirements for complex systems can be challenging, however, establishing a hierarchical framework of key questions (answered at each layer of the hierarchy) can be quite helpful.

While some regulatory authorities (such as the FAA) may require various layers of documentation and traceability, this article isn’t necessarily advocating a bureaucratic development process. The process can be scaled based on the complexity of your system, your ability to model it’s (system) design performance and/or based on the amount of product development risk the organization is willing to assume. [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Emphasizing Product Requirements

In this article we’ll explore the topic of requirements, and attitudes about identifying requirements before the design work begins.

In my experience, I’ve had design resources literally state “I hope there are no requirements”. (Unconstrained design and no requirements certainly made this designer’s job much easier.)

There are several other reasons requirements are sometimes neglected:

[Read more…]

by Ash Norton Leave a Comment

How to Craft a Purpose-filled Mission Statement

Unlocking your Engineering Career Potential

How to Craft a Purpose-filled Mission Statement

One of the best pieces of career advice that I have ever heard is to treat your career as a company, of which you are the CEO. And like any company, your career will need a guiding principle that will help you stay focused on your purpose. Companies today would not think of operating without a mission statement to guide them. However, too many of us skip this critical aspect of running our own careers. [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Ideation and Product Development

In recent articles I focused on a ‘linear’ approach to product development by understanding customer needs, establishing requirements (“what the design provides”), establishing a conceptual design, etc.

In this article, I’ll discuss a framework whereby an idea for a product or design might kick-off the process.

Also, rather than a commercialized product, we will assume our goal is to successfully demonstrate the idea’s feasibility. (This is common for a start-up company, where the business model might be to demonstrate product success with a goal of obtaining more venture capital, or to sell the intellectual property. Alternatively, a large company might want a separate idea development process that takes invention off the critical path.)

[Read more…]

by Ash Norton Leave a Comment

Hot Shot Rule

The Hot Shot Rule

Improve your career and life with this ONE question!

The Hot Shot Rule is a way to be your own coach in seeing what is possible and what needs improving.

Basically, you ask yourself, “If a hot shot took over my job today, what is one thing they would think is unacceptable?” And then go address that one thing. [Read more…]